Swarm of Spiders

[Medwyn]

I'm going through and preparing for an adventure and would like to have a swarm of spiders attack the party.

I first thought it would be straight forward, but the swarm NPC quality doesn't quite match up to my needs.

I want a swarm of a large number of spiders to cover the party and general weapons to be mildly annoying to the swarm. In short I want a Swarm Template.

I know I need to increase the size give it some damage defiance to weapons and then try and so forth.

So here is my first draft.

Swarm Template (+10XP)
A swarm is a large collection or Tiny or smaller creatures working together as a single creature.
Benefit: The NPC's size increases by 2 grades. He also gains Damge Defiance (Edged, Blunt, Bows), Condition Immunity (Flanked).

[Mister Andersen]

I don't see any reason why a swarm shouldn't be flankable; the bigger problem is that attack the swarm once it's initiated melee/grapple is that you're going to end up hurting the other members of your party.

Anyhow, try this terror out

     Spider Swarm (Large creeping horror -- 77 XP). Str 10 Dex 10 Con 10 Int 4 Wis 10 Cha 10. Sz L (2x2, Reach 1); Speed 20 ft ground; Init IV; Atk V; Def I; Res III; Skills: Athletics V, Intimidate V; Qualities: Achilles heel (fire), banned action (anything an individual spider would be incapable of), cold-blooded, damage immunity (stress), darkvision II, dread, feat (blackcat, jinx), grappler, menacing threat, rend, splitter (damage, instant, size permanently reduced 1 grade per split), sterner stuff, superior climber III, superior runner I, swarm, tricky (mix-up: grapple), unnerving.
     Attacks: Fangs  (Bite III/Shaken II: 2d10 subdual, thr 17-20, qual: bleed, 1/round DC 15 Wil save or become shaken).


ETA: Black Cat & Jinx feats,to make it more likely you'll smack your team-mate in the face.

[Crafty_Pat]

Heh. I scripted something called "Legion" to support some summoning spells. You'll see it in November - or maybe earlier, if we put it in the preview cycle.

[Forcegypsy]

That is terrifying. I don't know exactly how I'm going to use that swarm in my current Midnight campaign, but I'm definitely going to use it. Thanks.

[Medwyn]

I was looking at a simple template, and in return I got a true monster!

Thanks Mr. A

[Big_Jim]

You can also use this to make a lunchbox full of eels. Lunch just got a million points cooler.

[Mister Andersen]

All part of the service 

Splitter shouldn't come up too often given the reduced vulnerability to ... unless you're running the auto-crit campaign quality, in which case that's where the swarm ability comes in unless your players are desperately spending their AD to stop that from happening. Consider the reach of 1 to just be the leading edge of a 10' x 10' carpet of arachnids

If you really really want to go to town, give the spider swarm Athletics X and Tomb Raider, as well as Cheap Shot

[Mister Andersen]

You can also use this to make a lunchbox full of eels. Lunch just got a million points cooler.

[Oleyo]

I was looking at a simple template, and in return I got a true monster!

Thanks Mr. A

I would love to see all the swarm specific stuff folded into the Template.  I love the idea of applying a Swarm template to almost any creature!

[Doublebond]

You can also use this to make a lunchbox full of eels. Lunch just got a million points cooler.

Is this as much of a non sequitur as I think it is?

[Big_Jim]

Kind of... but not really. It was a product from some fake comedic commercial many years ago. The 'Lunch just got a million points cooler' bit was the tagline/motto for the product. I regularly threaten people with a gift of a lunchbox full of eels and with the swarm quality I can have it just spewing eels everywhere... joy. (At least until they close the lunchbox.)

[Mister Andersen]

I was looking at a simple template, and in return I got a true monster!

Thanks Mr. A

I would love to see all the swarm specific stuff folded into the Template.  I love the idea of applying a Swarm template to almost any creature!

You don't really need a template in a lot of cases, at least when dealing with insects as you're talking about things that are generally in the nuisance category and the system already handles them with a minimum of fuss.

The NPC can make simultaneous attacks with others of his species. A single attack check is made with a bonus equal to the number of NPCs involved. With a hit, the target suffers the attack’s base damage only once, but it’s multiplied by 1/2 this bonus (rounded down).

32 per 5' x 5' square

You fill a square with insects, and that's a +32 attack bonus on top of the number generated by its attack Trait, dealing 16 times the minimum 1d3/1d4 for a grade I gore or bite attack -- that's a 16 to 64 damage spread, which may well force a massive damage save in an ordinary game, and in one with Hewn Limbs quality in play, that's an almost mandatory critical injury or massive damage save with every hit (particularly if you give the bugs the Called Shot trick to bypass armour). And that's for just a single half action: give your bugs an acid bite attack -- mmmm, scarab beetles -- and thats between 24 and 128 points of acid damage a round!

By comparison, my subdual/stress dealing monstrous swarm of spiders is quite the soft and cuddly experience

[Sletchman]

You fill a square with insects, and that's a +32 attack bonus on top of the number generated by its attack Trait, dealing 16 times the minimum 1d3/1d4 for a grade I gore or bite attack -- that's a 16 to 64 damage spread, which may well force a massive damage save in an ordinary game, and in one with Hewn Limbs quality in play, that's an almost mandatory critical injury or massive damage save with every hit (particularly if you give the bugs the Called Shot trick to bypass armour). And that's for just a single half action: give your bugs an acid bite attack -- mmmm, scarab beetles -- and thats between 24 and 128 points of acid damage a round!

By comparison, my subdual/stress dealing monstrous swarm of spiders is quite the soft and cuddly experience

I actually used that in play, thinking it would be a simple encounter.  After consuming a PC alive in a round the rest of the group fled.  Everyone involved was surprised by the scarab beetle death machines.  Virtually no XP for the encounter either.  Probably worth noting that they didn't have a Mage, which would probably have changed things.

[Oleyo]

Of course, just because 32 N sized creatures can fit in a square doesn't necessarily mean you should put 32 in a square

[Krensky]

Of course, this has made me realize I was using swarm completely wrong with my goblins in Burnt Offerings. That said, I like how it worked out so I suppose I need to write it up properly.